The embodiments described herein relate generally to image reconstruction systems, and more particularly, to detector assemblies for helical CT scanning.
In some computed tomography (CT) imaging system configurations, an x-ray source projects a fan-shaped beam which is collimated to lie within an X-Y plane of a Cartesian coordinate system and generally referred to as an “imaging plane”. The x-ray beam passes through an object being imaged. The beam, after being attenuated by the object, impinges upon an array of radiation detectors. The intensity of the attenuated radiation beam received at the detector array is dependent upon the attenuation of the x-ray beam by the object. Each detector element of the array produces a separate electrical signal that is a measurement of the beam intensity at each detector location. The intensity measurements from all the detectors are acquired separately to produce a transmission profile and reconstruct an image of the object.
At least some known CT systems require a contiguous two-dimensional detector array to achieve high throughput for helical scanning. Detectors are generally the most expensive part of a CT system (either measured by unit area or channel count). It is also generally desirable to increase the throughput of a CT system to process more articles per hour in order to reduce operational costs of the system. As such, there is a general need to increase the size of the detector. However, increasing the area and channel count of a detector is relatively expensive. Accordingly, it would be desirable to increase throughput of a helical CT scanner without increasing the number of detector elements.